4

We use an internal LTO3 tape drive (HP Ultrium 920) in a PC (no particular server hardware) running Linux. The tape drive becomes quite hot - I don't have the exact temperature, but you may touch it for a second or two, then it hurts ;-) This happens when the tape has nothing to do (during reading/writing, it might become even hotter, I haven't checked that).

Besides that, the system is working fine. Now I'm wondering

  • Why does the tape becomes so hot?
  • Is this something I need to care about?
  • Is there something like a 'standby' mode for the tape? (I think it should not consume that much energy when it is not used)
claasz
  • 520

2 Answers2

6

Tape drives are designed to be in server hardware with correct cooling and air flow setups. I would suggest you check the internal cooling arrangements especially in area of the tape drive and address this.

But I have just checked our tape drives and they are warm but these are in s a tape ibrary.

Zapto
  • 1,792
6

This is way too hot, there are always parts in any computer that would get too hot (CPU/GPU normally) but there's obviously an airflow problem with your server/'PC'. I'd get it unplugged as soon as you can and look to place it in something with appropriately cooled.

Edit - looking at their spec that particular drive isn't supposed to go over 40C/104F - so that's really not right at all.

Chopper3
  • 101,808